Twinned with Leatherhead

The McDonalds are getting closer together, the yapping dogs smaller and it's more difficult to find a quiet spot to have lunch without bothersome pigeons. The Seine is overfull. It flows over the ornamental bushes and the quaint paths that line the river. The queue in the boulangerie this morning was full of it. What will happen? No rain but the river is definitely rising.

Bridge

Getting up, out of bed not knowing where you are going to stay the next night, what you are going to eat, directing yourself through a country that you don't understand the language can be exciting and beautiful. It is unsettling too.

Your emotions are on the outside. Walking longer distances than usual exhausts you energies.  Decisions get made on gut feeling. I left one town and walked seven miles to the next because it was cloudy, the place looked gloomy. The right decision. All the time you are on the look out for clues. The sight of a suburban tower block in the distance lifted me. The ugly bridge over the Seine at Rouen made me gushingly happy. The first sight of Paris...

I've become aware of my body, too aware, particularly my feet. Slight pains or aches could mean the end of the journey. These niggle as you walk. My mind thought I had a blood clot in my ankle, it was a bit of plastic from a price tag in my sock. A real nuisance. My sun tan lotion is waterproof, it makes me sweat in an odd way.

When I have sorted out the end of my day, take off my rucksac, I want to go for a walk. It is difficult to stop. I have been having to deliberately time out, to go nowhere. To sit down, take pressure off my feet. To listen?

Mantes

On my own inside the church of Notre Dame de Mantes la Jolie. A blackbird is chirping away high in the rafters. The acoustics are supreme.

Iain Sinclair

"A walk is a series of questions" 

Thank you Jane.

Each day someone in a car has drawn up next to me to ask directions. Personally, the last person I would flag down is a man in sunglasses lugging an embarrassingly large rucsac. Obviously not local. Any conversation only lasts till they realise I am British and sweating heavily.

Tweets

Feeling a bit maudlin this morning. The thought of a street dedicated to bird song lifted my spirits. As does radio4 programme on recordings of birdsong. The advantage of being in France is that it is on an hour later.

Sunday afternoon on the banks of the Seine with Sainsburys' bag inMantes

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sunday_Afternoon_on_the_Island_of_La_Grande_Jatte

Seven days.

I have never walked so far.

Brighton: Newhaven: Dieppe: Totes: Rouen: Poses: Les Andelys: Vernon: Mantes la Jolie. 

I seem to have been following two contradictory routes. One taken by ex-king Louis Philippe and his family as they fled Paris for Surrey during the 1848 revolution. His name and image keep cropping up. I passed directions to a museum/ stately home dedicated to the Orleans legitimacy over the French crown. One night  I stayed in an olde inn that had his picture on the wall. Freaky or kitsch?

In the opposite direction, I seem to have been following the off-road berghaus route of the Canadian army as it moved en masse into Europe in 1944. Every ultra long suburban avenue in Normandy is named after them, which must be confusing for the postal service. Not much mention of the US or British, perhaps they landed elsewhere or maybe some of the Canadians spoke French and get a better press as a result?.